The Astros' front office, which has touted its proprietary technology and data with greater zeal than any other in baseball, was embarrassed Monday when trade dialogues the team said were illegally obtained from its internal system were published on the website Deadspin.

Included in the information, which spans a 10-month period from the middle of last summer to this spring, were purported trade discussions the Astros had with the Marlins regarding their star slugger Giancarlo Stanton, and exchanges about trading catcher Jason Castro.

Conversations with the Rockies about a player the Astros acquired in a trade - center fielder Dexter Fowler - are included, as well as talks about pitcher Bud Norris, who was sent to Baltimore last year at the trade deadline.

The Astros acknowledged their system was breached and said MLB's security team and the FBI were working together to investigate but said, too, that some of the reported conversations were inaccurate.

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The team did not identify which conversations were authentic. MLB declined comment.

An item identified as originating Nov. 15, 2013, notated a conversation between Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow and Marlins general manager Dan Jennings:

"(Luhnow) talked to (Jennings) and said we had interest in Stanton. DJ said he doesn't think he'll trade Stanton and the only deal he could think of from us that would work would be (George) Springer and (Carlos) Correa. JL said that would not work. JL posited a deal around (Jarred) Cosart and (Delino) Deshields."

The dialogues, which include talks with the Yankees about Ichiro Suzuki and the Red Sox about top young player Xander Bogaerts, are a revelatory window rarely, if ever, provided into how baseball trade negotiations work: start high and work your way down.

But they also are a breach of trust and an unwanted look behind the curtain for the Astros, not to mention the other teams involved.

"It's a very unfortunate circumstance," Luhnow said. "First time I've heard of anything like this."

Players pay it no mind

Cosart said he was aware the Astros might have offered him to another club and said he was not bothered. Castro and Springer brushed aside the matter.

"I'm here to play baseball," Cosart said. "I know it's a business, it's a sport and I actually, I didn't read it until I talked - I got here and I saw it. But you know, I'm here for now, and obviously I'd like to be here a long term. This is my hometown and I grew up a fan and I got traded here for one of my favorite players growing up. I know the business side of it."

Jennings denied to USA Today that he discussed trading Stanton.

One major league executive confirmed that the conversations the executive had knowledge of were accurate; other outlets received similar affirmations.

The Chronicle in March published a feature on Ground Control, the Astros' proprietary, web-based database.

According to Deadspin, the leaked information originated in Ground Control and was posted at Anonbin.com, a site where users anonymously share information that has been hacked or leaked.

Luhnow acknowledged the team's security system was not sufficient.

"Obviously not, if someone got in," Luhnow said. "It's better now, and hopefully that's good enough, but you never know. I don't know if anybody can say for certain that any system is 100 percent secure. We're working on it, we've done a security review. We're going to continue to do more. … Information is important in our industry as it is in any industry and we want to do everything we can to protect the information.

"I think we were prepared. We had security in place, and when you're talking about criminals, we just never know if we have enough."

The information was obtained by an outside party, the Astros believe. Luhnow didn't provide information on the search for those responsible for releasing it and said he didn't know a motive.

Bound to happen

South Carolina-based Timothy De Block writes about the Astros for the website The Crawfish Boxes, but his day job is in the information security field.

"There is no absolute in security, but there are things that can be done to minimize the risk of a breach," De Block wrote to the Chronicle. "They should have minimized the risk being a multimillion-dollar organization, but they may have done that and still gotten breached. In today's digital age, it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when."

Luhnow said the team became aware a month ago of illegal activity but said he was not informed by the website Deadspin ahead of time that the story was to be released. Deadspin said that it had contacted someone in the team's front office.

"We were one of the more active teams in the trade market the last couple years," Luhnow said when asked why the Astros were targeted. "Maybe that had something to do with it. I really don't have an idea."

Luhnow said he spoke to his players as well as other teams.

"There are some people's feelings that are going to be hurt after they read their name," Twins general manager Terry Ryan said Monday, according to beat writer Rhett Bollinger. "That's not good."

But Ryan said he wouldn't change how he does business going forward.

"It's unfortunate," Luhnow said of the impact on other clubs. "I feel bad about that. I've been on the phone with other teams expressing my apology and letting them know what happened. That's about all I can do at this point.

GMs lend support

"I really can't comment on (other team's reactions). I've had conversations with a lot of the teams that were referenced in there, and in general, they're understanding and supportive, but I'm sure they're not happy about the fact that whether they're real or not, that the conversations referencing their team and their players were referenced."

Rangers general manager Jon Daniels told MLB Network Radio he felt bad for the Astros.

"I did read through that a little bit earlier. I feel for the Astros, that's not a fun thing to go through," Daniels said. "We were mentioned in there a couple times, nothing huge, nothing earth-shattering. … That was the first thing I did, was call over to (our) IT (information technology department)."